Estimating carbon storage and CO₂ absorption by developing allometric equations for Quercus acuta in South Korea

This study was conducted to estimate C storage and CO₂ absorption by developing allometric equations for Quercus acuta in South Korea. Carbon content and CO₂ absorption were estimated according to climate change using data such as volume, stem density, and biomass expansion factor (BEF). Three kinds of BEFs were applied for this calculation: the national factor (NF, 1.22); the factor in this study (1.3275); and the biomass expansion regression equation (BRE) in this study. BRE among BEFs was developed to calculate BEF related to diameter at breast height (DBH) because BEF had a significantly positive relationship with DBH; the bigger DBH grew, the higher BEF increased. When applying the NF, C content and CO₂ absorption were the lowest as 64.0455 t C ha⁻¹ and 234.6840 t CO₂ ha⁻¹, respectively; whereas these were 69.6865 t C ha⁻¹ and 255.5165 t CO₂ ha⁻¹ for the factor in this study. The highest values of C content and CO₂ absorption were shown as 74.9280 t C ha⁻¹ and 274.7365 t CO₂ ha⁻¹ when using the BRE. Carbon content prediction equations were also developed using these BEFs. Thus, BRE is suitable for developing an allometric equation for C content prediction with the greatest R² adjusted of 0.9815.